Shadow And Milky Way

Chinook's boat, Williwaw, has been incommunicado but is at last returning safely from the turbulent atmosphere of the gas giant planet, Danu. Brodersen announces:

"'Good night. A real good night, ain't it? A real good night.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXX, p. 262.

Usually, in an Anderson text, such a piece of dialogue would be followed by something like: "Suddenly, the sun rose from behind the planet." We have often commented on the Pathetic Fallacy. Instead, this time, we get:

"(Chinook entered the shadow cone of Danu, and half of heaven was blotted out.)" (ibid.)

A negative Pathetic Fallacy, clearly intended to warn us that all is not alright. Anderson would have known the effect of what he was writing.

Meanwhile, the Milky Way is never far away:

"He felt her tense in his arms, saw in the ring of the Milky Way how she mastered her lips." (XXX, p. 264)

"...the galactic river..." (XXXI, p. 265)

"The Milky Way in a viewscreen crowned her uplifted head." (XXXI, p. 268)

Again we distinguish between descriptions of the Milky Way and objects, including human heads, seen against the Milky Way.